Royal jelly (RJ), a honeybee-derived product, has been found
to possess developmental and physiological bioactivity in the fruit fly,
Drosophila melanogaster, but little is known about the in vivo bioactivity of
freeze-dried RJ (FDRJ) powder, which is another form of RJ processed for human
use.

To address this, we used Drosophila as a model animal to examine the
effects of FDRJ in multicellular organisms. When flies were reared on food
supplemented with FDRJ, the developmental time from larva to adult was
shortened, the adult male lifespan was prolonged, and female fecundity was
increased without any significant morphological alterations. Moreover, the
expression of dilp5, an insulin-like peptide, its receptor InR, and the
nutrient sensing molecule TOR, the target of rapamycin, was significantly
increased in FDRJ-fed female flies as compared with ones reared on standard and
on protein-enriched food.

These findings suggest that like RJ, FDRJ maintains
its bioactivity even after processing from RJ, what is expected to have
bioactivity for multicellular organisms, including humans.